2011-02-11 - Be

Part 3

God desires for us to come and go but more than anything he just wants us
to be. His desire, His will, for Bartimaeus was for him to be healed. What
a great word "be". Coming and going are things we do but we are human beings
not human doings  who we are is far more important than what we do.
Come and go are action words; they are all about verbs. Being is more about
adjectives. Martha was a comer and go-er. Mary was a be-er. Whereas come
and go describe what we do, be is all about who we are. Coming and going
make the moments that shape lives but being is the shape of the life; it
is life. So let us look at what God wants us to be.

Doing a word search on be and its various conjugations in the Bible examining
them all and just trying to look at the ones that describe what we ought
to be as Christians would take considerable time. There are literally hundreds
of things Christians ought to be. We are to be sober, righteous, and godly
(Titus 2:11). We are to be glad, be reconciled, be wise as serpents, and
be harmless as doves. (Matthew 5:12, 5:24, and 10:16 ) If we just started
with an exhaustive look at Matthew, I think we could go at it for hours and
not even be through the one book. There'd be a danger it looking at all of
it too  we might start heading down a road of legalism setting up criteria
by which to judge one another's lives. So let's just look at a few things,
those that are nearest and dearest to our Lord's heart, and those that he
prayed fervently for us to be in the garden just before his arrest.

John 17:20-26

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which
shall believe on me through their word;

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me,
and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe
that thou hast sent me.

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them;
that they may be one, even as we are one:

I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect
in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved
them, as thou hast loved me.

Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me,
be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given
me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but
I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.

And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare
it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in
them.

In this prayer from the lips of Jesus we find the top be's

Be Perfect

First in verse 23 he prays "that they may be
perfect". His desire is for us to be as He is - to be Christ like
- to be perfect. For Bartimaeus he said, "Be healed"
In other words, he says, "Be well, be perfect, be whole,
be as I intended you to be before the fall." Whether its physical
perfection or more importantly spiritual perfection God just wants us to
be perfect.